Not a chance. Why is it these stories about people getting great mpg in a Prius are always “my XXX’s XXXX did this and got this”? I own a Prius and I live in a flat state, absolutely no hills whatsoever. The only way anyone is getting over 42 mpg in a Prius is if they live in the hills and learn to properly coast in neutral. I’ve owned mine for 3 years, drive 21 miles one-way to work every workday, 18 of those miles on a turnpike with no stops and the best I’ve ever achieved was 42 mpg about the 5th or 6th tank in. Since then the mpg has gone down to mid-30’s. In stop-and-go traffic it will even drop down to the mid to high 20’s (along the PCH from Laguna Beach to Malibu and back it consumed an entire tank of gas, and that’s only 160 miles round-trip). Don’t believe the hype people. Don’t let Toyota fool you! It’s a sweet car, and I enjoy it thoroughly, it’s worth every penny, it just doesn’t get the mpg Toyota and all of the liberal environmentalists claim.

Seriously, I think it looks great! I don’t understand why everyone thinks it is an ugly car, I actually really enjoy the way it looks.

Ok, I did some research and ran some numbers…. the Prius is classified by the EPA as a mid-size car… the Corolla is classified as a compact, so those can’t really be compared. The non-hybrid Toyota make that is comparable and in the same EPA classification is the Camry.

The MSRP for the 2008 standard Prius is $22,220. It’s rated 48 city and 45 highway (though my girlfriends coworker in real world just got an average 52 highway roundtrip between Boston MA and Montreal Canada with her Prius and 3 adult women w/lots of luggage to boot).

The MSRP for the 2008 base Camry with automatic 5-speed transmission (since the Prius is auto) is $20,340 and is rated 21 city, 31 highway.

That’s a price difference of $1,880. With the assumption of 15,000 miles driven/year (GM assumes this w/the Volt as an average)

…. if you drive all city driving you will save 401.79 gallons/year. At $3.50 gas payback is 1.33 years, at $4 gas it’s 1.17 years, and at $5 gas (very possible once worldwide economy turns around) only 0.94 of a year.

…. if you drive all highway driving the fuel savings is 150.53 gallons/year. Payback period at $3.50 gas is 3.5 years, at $4 gas it’s 3.12 years, and at $5 would be 2.5 years.

Most folks are probably somewhere in between the two for city vs. highway, and I don’t know what the combined cycle EPA rating is for either car.

I won’t give all the numbers, but I did run it against the Corolla as well, even though it’s a significantly smaller car. At a $6,295 price difference…. all City miles drivers would take 6 years at $4 gas, all Highway miles drivers would take 16.5 years. But if I was interested in a car the size of the Prius… I wouldn’t also be looking at the Corolla.

If you ran the numbers, then you had to have run them against a specific vehicle…. you mention the Corolla in this post, is that the vehicle you compared it to? The Corolla really isn’t similar to a Prius… they are in very different size categories, unless they are much bigger now than my parents model year.

And like #113 (dagwood55)… I also don’t see how you arrived at the numbers you computed and the payback period.

I’m a little confused because your first post seemed to imply you did the math comparing the Prius to another car that you did end up buying, not a hypothetical vehicle?

Your last statement you are stating that the Prius (or all hybrids) has/have higher maintenance costs…. that’s a bad assumption and I’ve actually heard the data shows less maintenance. Keep in mind that the internal combustion engine (ICE) in the Prius is running some percentage less of the time than in a conventional vehicle where the ICE runs 100% of the time.

I agree that cars are a depreciating asset and so, ignoring the utility you get from it, is a bad investment.

Running a cost analysis is useful for comparing alternatives though. A new Prius or a new Corolla are both bad investments, but which is a worse investment? From what I ran, the Prius is much worse.

Where did you get the $3500 figure?

#71 JeffM

Fair Point. I’ll go into more detail on the breakeven point for a hybrid. Assuming they cost $3,500 more over a “similar” car, and get 10 mpg better, with gas at $3.50, you’ll have to drive 157,500 miles before you make back the money in gas savings. At 12,000 miles / year, that’s 13 years to breakeven. Obviously like you said, if you drive more, it’ll payoff sooner.

This neglects any extra maintenance costs from a hybrid, depreciation differences, time value of money, etc, so you can definitely go into more detail on the cost analysis.
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From my experience, when trying to look at any vehicle purchase from a costing standpoint, the checklist usually is in this order:

1.) Initial Price
2.) Residual Price
3.) MPG
4.) Maintenance

When any two cars are simlar in one of those factors, you generally just delete that criteria. There are of course some exceptions to this rule.

Longevity of ownership certainly skewers it the most. We are always tempted to push the ‘math’ out many, many years too far…sometimes over a decade. Generally new car buyers…like new cars and don’t buy and hold. For myself, I always say I will do something, but I am forced to allow for my past actions dictating future results.

The cardinal rule is always right though: “A car is always a bad investment” Hehe.